Bitter Bloggings of an Optimistic Actress: The Bottom Dollar

This is a post I never put up from 2019:

    So I admit, I have four side hustles and am actually looking to add a fifth.  I am a Standardized Patient (medical actor) for two companies, a CPR instructor, and a bartender.  Why?  Because I gotta!  It takes all four of these jobs to keep me monied enough to survive.  Acting is an expensive business as anyone who has ever tried knows.

    A decent headshot starts at $450 just for three pictures of your face.  Additional pictures are $75 apiece.  Make up artist $175 for the two hours you have them.

    So two weeks ago I got the call saying that I would be shooting a film.  WHOOT!  HOLLA!  YAY!  ALL THAT JAZZ!  It will be great!  Can't wait to get started.  

    Here is the annoying part.  The first two weeks of this month were slow.  REALLY SLOW.  As in I was barely needed by any of my four jobs and if I was needed by one I was needed by all.  I didn't just teach CPR, I taught CPR and drove an hour to be a standardized patient and then bartended an event.  It was INSANE.  This month I have worked a total of 5 days.  That is total!  Thankfully they have been busy days.

    I think we can be honest these days with ourselves.  Acting has become a job mostly for the independently wealthy.  If you aren't a trust fund kid, the child of a famous actor, or related to someone who is at the top of the totem pole you have to work twenty times harder to get the same opportunities.

 

    The most successful people I know of in the acting field, they don't have jobs.  They are stay at home moms.  They are retired.  They are people who have all the time to get up and leave and go on the road and shoot a film.  And I will admit it, I am envious of that.  I rarely get those moments and when I had them, boy did I love every second of it.  I never took it for granted and I worked more often as an actor.

     Am I saying these people with money or connections have less talent?  No!  But they do have access to things some of us will never have access to.  There was an article recently posted about Maya Hawk due to her newfound fame from Stranger Things and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.  They asked her if she thinks she has "an advantage by being the child of Uma Thurmon and Ethan Hawk?"  She said no.  

     Of course, she has an advantage.  And why wouldn't she take advantage of it?  If I had the same advantages do you think for a second I wouldn't jump on that opportunity?  She has money and opportunity.  Do I fault her for it?  No!  Meryl Streep Did the same thing for her daughters.  Tony Curtis did the same things for his child.  There is a huge list of actors who are children of other famous actors.  Why?!  Because they know everyone their parents know.  

     Am I saying these people aren't talented?  You can look at a Michael Douglas movie and know that isn't true.  Maya Hawk is highly talented, but please don't pretend her odds of being on Stranger Things would be the same if she wasn't related to two famous people.